The Information Minister has announced that Ghana’s case count of the novel coronavirus has risen to nine from seven.

Posting on Twitter, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah said the cases were confirmed overnight.

“Health services are still managing all suspected and confirmed cases well,” he wrote.

Covid-19 Update
Unfortunately we have confirmed two more cases overnight. Ghana’s case count is now at 9. Health services are still managing all suspected and confirmed cases well.

— Kojo Oppong Nkrumah (@konkrumah) March 19, 2020

Health authorities said they received another report form the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR) on March 18 indicating two more confirmed cases from the Greater Accra Region.

"Both are imported cases. One is a 56-year-old man, a Ghanaian who travelled back to Accra from a trip to the UK about a week ago.

"The other is a 33-year-old Ghanaian, who returned to Accra from a conference in UAE. Both cases are receiving treatment in isolation," the Ghana Health Service (GHS) said on its website.

"Currently, there is no death and all the nine confirmed Covid-19 cases are being managed in isolation and are responding well to treatment," they added.

Contact tracing

According to GHS, a total of 399 contacts have been identified and are being followed up for the confirmed cases.

“Nineteen of the contacts developed some forms of symptoms and samples have taken for laboratory testing.

“We have received results for 15 of them which are all negative for COVID-19 and we are awaiting results for four of them,” GHS said.